Potential New York City Doorman Strike Is Tough Lesson in Public Relations for Chatty Rich People

From Wikipedia/By Garry Knight.There could be trouble afoot for residents of New York’s nicer buildings, as 12:01 a.m. Wednesday could signal the (temporary!) end of doormen! Reports the New York Daily News: “The four-year contract for 30,000 workers at some 3,200 apartment buildings in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island expires Wednesday. [...] If a new deal is not reached by the deadline, the workers, who serve some of the most upscale apartment buildings in the city, vow they will walk off the job.” An informative Web site has already been set up for the purposes of instructing such New Yorkers how to report a loss of hot water, how to call the exterminator, and how to legally take out their own garbage. Naturally, the potential of a strike has ushered in a flurry of competing classist and reverse-classist media coverage.

Already the underdogs in terms of drumming up public support, doormen-equipped-building-denizens have provided some rather uncouth quotes to the paper of record. Cf., today’s story on the possible strike: “Arriving on Park Avenue on Sunday, Robert Neis, a marketing executive, immediately asked his doorman for assistance with the luggage from a family getaway to Shelter Island, N.Y. ‘It would be a bummer if they strike,’ Mr. Neis said. ‘It’s a lot nicer when they help with the work.’” There’s more: “Harold Gerber, who runs a real estate business and has lived in his co-op on East 75th Street for more than two decades, said he was already worried about security, and grumbled at the prospect of hauling his own trash. ‘It will affect us tremendously,’ he said.” Earlier this month, a one Donna Saunders told 1010WINS of doormen, “We rely on them for everything. They make life easier.'”

As hilarious—and constructive!—as creating narratives of bitter class resentment is, the media should be noting that when wealthy people talk about how important doormen are, these backwards compliments and complaints are actually helping the doormen’s cause. Whining about taking out one’s own garbage is, in its own way, inelegantly arguing that doormen do deserve a raise. And it also should be noted that it’s in the interest of absolutely everyone—Team Doormen, Team People Who Live in Doormen Buildings, as well the actual doormen and people who live in doormen buildings—for negotiations to not involve a strike.